Category: marcos

leni, mocha, joan of arc

it’s laughable the way leni is likened to cory when, really, the only thing they have in common is widowhood.  although it may be said that both ladies were catapulted to public consciousness through their spouses’ unexpected deaths, their personal circumstances and the political situations prevailing in 1985-86 and today are vastly different.  DILG sec jessie robredo was not even in the same league as senator ninoy aquino: he was a newbie on the national stage while ninoy was the leading oppositionist to president marcos before and through most of martial law until his assassination in 1983, and that certainly had a lot to do with cory’s popularity and stature.

but obviously the point is to remind us only that cory, a plain housewife, managed to oust an entrenched dictator, and that there is hope in leni, a lawyer and one-term legislator, doing cory better and ousting a president of five months who is detested by many for ruling like a dictator (EJKs, marcos-love, and all) though without the formality of martial law.

Leni is now the symbol and moving spirit of the political opposition: A JOAN OF ARC IN THE RAGING BATTLEFIELD OF PHILIPPINE POLITICS. [caps not mine]

sabi ‘yan ni belinda olivares-cunanan in her blog political tidbits soon after the veep’s resignation from the duterte cabinet.  back in september 1986, georgie anne geyer of gettysburg times first said it of cory when the new prez was in the U.S. to address Congress, and many of us thought it was silly, and yet philippine media picked it up, so flattered were they for cory, no matter how hilarious and inapt the comparison.

She … seems, in an almost mystical sense, to be the realization of the female leader (like Joan of Arc without the final tragedy) that feminists have looked for.

when cory died in 2009, it was recalled by the foreign press  though with some discernment.

When a bewildered Marcos and his wife Imelda fled the nation, it set a stirring precedent for dissidents everywhere, from South Africa to South America to Pakistan. Aquino was hailed as a modern-day Joan of Arc.

…Aquino’s presidency was less successful than the revolution, with a series of coup attempts by the military keeping the administration hamstrung. She was lauded for her courage, but rarely seemed able to get on top of ruling the country.  

seven years later, in march 2016, it was revived, tagged on to vp leni by philstar columnist tony katigbak (A Joan of Arc in the Phl) for daring, during the campaign, to speak against the marcos burial in libingan ng mga bayani.  and then in july by jojo robles, though wth some disdain (Imelda, not Cory), just before the prez finally gave her a cabinet position.

Leni, who was being cast by the Yellows as the new Cory leading the opposition like Joan of Arc against the Dictator from Davao, felt that the better offensive was an Imeldific charm offensive.

but now that the honeymoon is over, and vp leni is back with the opposition and again being hailed as a joan of arc, alam ba ng yellows na may  kaagaw siya sa koronang ito?   three days earlier than cunanan, on the very weekend that vp leni made sumbong to nation that she had been asked to desist from attending cabinet meetings, mocha uson posted a cover photo of herself clad in armor with sword in hand and the title JOAN OF ARC of the DDS (duterte’s diehard supporters), no less.  laban kayo?

puwede na ring ipalamang kay mocha, please.  mas bagay rin sa drama niya at sa drama ng presidente, whether she hears or not the voice of god, like the original joan, and oh, like her tatay digong, or so he likes to joke.

but seriously.  leni’s resignation from the cabinet has of course renewed rumors of a digong ouster plot in this run-up to the jan 20 and feb 2017 edsa anniversaries.  and it’s hard to simply take leni’s word for it, or the LP’s, that there is no such conspiracy in the works, not with LP moneybags loida nicolas lewis putting her foot in her mouth with that call for the president to resign so leni can take over before bongbong manages to take over the vice-presidency.

was that a signal of sorts to start some balls rolling behind the scenes here and in america?  who knows, we might see a mixed bag of tricks from the EDSA uno and edsa dos playbooks.  duterte won the election fair and square so I don’t see a popular and prayerful clamor for his resignation, but the state of his health is a matter of concern — what if he suddenly keels over, cross our fingers please — or what if he messes up big time — like erap did — and the super majority in congress suddenly finds itself a minority, and a manny villar rises to railroad his impeachment?  fat chance?  just the same, it’s important that the vp question be settled quickly, credibly, and with finality by the supreme court.

i share most of the scattered oppositions’ major major concerns, especially over the drug war (bakit walang nadadali na drug lords?  bakit pinatay si espinosa?  sinong nagpapatay?) and charter change (federalism freaks me out, and wow he’s agreeable to reversing the 60-40 ownership requirement re public utilities) BUT BUT BUT may he live to finish his term, just because he draws the line: NO to foreign ownership of land.

“But you know, there is something which [I will oppose]—it’s a fundamental irreconcilable difference with me and some of the congressmen because even the Speaker before, who was my political enemy, already agreed to sell lands—selling lands to foreigners. I am sorry, but I am not ready for that kind because most of the Filipinos are poor. And with the growing economy of the supergiant, China and the rest, they can always come here and buy the land and they can buy the whole of Tondo and relocate there and we’ll have nothing and everything sold,” he pointed out.

that’s music to my ears, and i am won over again.  anything happens to him, paninindigan ba ‘yan at ipaglalaban rin ng kung sino man ang papalit kay digong?   yes, we would need a joan (or john) of arc of sorts, as much to fight foreign powers who would buy us out as to fight pinoy politicos and oligarchs who would sell us out.

Was Marcos a dictator?

Mags Z. Maglana

DAVAO CITY (26 November) — Yesterday in the course of the Davao response to the National Day of Unity and Rage Against the Hero’s Burial for Marcos, I was asked a few times what I thought of the President’s statement that those protesting the burial should consider two questions: “Was Marcos a president? Was he a soldier?”

I responded by saying that since the matter was of national and historical importance that we should flat out refuse to reduce it to those two questions. And I counter proposed three that also needed to be considered: Was Marcos a dictator? Did the Marcoses steal billions from the national coffers? Have the Marcoses owned up to and apologized for the transgressions they committed and let happen when they were in power?

Read on…

No research, no way of detecting radioactive leakages #NoToBNPP

DR. RUBEN UMALI
Radiation biologist
University of the Philippines 

Most of us, unfortunately, were trained abroad, either in the United Kingdom or the United States. Therefore, we are very much aware of how sensitive plants and animals are to radioactive releases, but these are animals and plants of temperate countries. We don’t know how sensitive our mango, sampalok, avocado trees, our rivers, lakes, mollusks, fishes, and animals are to radiation. Different organisms would have different coefficients. Different organisms would have different rates of keeping the radio-isotopes, depending on their metabolism. All we know is that radio-sensitivity will be very much related to the chromosome number and to the volume of the nucleus. At the moment we’re just beginning to find out the chromosome number of most of our local plants in Bataan. Then only can we determine which of these plans to use as indicators of radioactive leakage.

Most of us are interested, of course, in the genetic significant dose. What kinds of mutations will radiation produce? This will be a legacy. Mutations are forever, will be transmitted from generation to generation.

One thing we can expect is an increase in caratogenic effects (abnormalities in foetuses) and an increase in the incidence of cancer due to direct or delayed effects of radiation, or due to the accumulation of certain radioactive materials in some very sensitive areas. For example, strontium-90 in the bones could easily lead to leukemia, cancer of the bones.

But right now we know very little about what happens to radio isotopes that are absorbed internally. How long will they stay there? Will they be removed or eliminated? Where will they go? To the very important tissues of the lungs, the heart, the bones, or will they be all over the body, or only in the thyroid, or in the blood?  And you cannot assess any of that unless you go one by one through the list of isotopes and also through the different organisms of the food chain the land and water ecosystems. It’s not that simple.

We’ve told NAPOCOR a number of times  that we need to do these kinds of studies but their usual answer is that they’re not a research institution, that PAEC and some universities can do that kind of work. But since there’s no funding for research in this area, few studies have been done.

Question. What if it came to a vote?

I’d vote negative. And not because of safety problems . . . I am confident that the technical aspects can be handled . . .  but for economic reasons. My conviction is that since Juan de la Cruz needs only two bulbs to light his house, $2 billion is too much to pay.

[“A Primer on Nuclear Power.” Alternative Futures.  Vol II. No 1. 1985.  27-32]

Safety concerns, leaking tubes, nuclear waste #NoToBNPP

DR. ACHILLES DEL CALLAR
Nuclear engineer, Dean of the College of Science
Adamson University 

Our concern centers around a very little 16-gm. pellet which contains about 3% uranium-235 and 97% uranium-238 bonded with ceramic. This little pellet, fully utilized, will give as much energy as 4 barrels of oil. If your burn one carbon atom, you get about 30 electron volts of energy, and that’s being generous. If you split one uranium atom, you get 200,000,000 electron volts of energy, a tremendous amount of energy indeed.

Seven million 16-gm. Pellets are packed in rods that are about 45 feet long and the rods are clustered, and the clusters are put in the reactor core. Our worries begin with the very act of fission itself. You have, say, a basketball-size uranium-235 nucleus. You split that with a small ping-pong size neutron. In the process of fission, you produce energy and two large volleyball-size  very radioactive particles, plus two to three more pingpong-size neutrons: one needed to continue the chain reaction, the other to lodge somewhere else, which if it lodges in the structure may produce a third radioactive atom; if it lodges in the fuel, more likely it will lodge in the uranium-238 nucleus which will react; if there’s a nuclear reaction between a u-238 and a neutron, you produce plutonium after two decays, which means there will be enough material in the nuclear reactor after a year’s operation to produce enough plutonium for about 10 to 20 bombs, depending on design. Which for some countries may be a good thing, but for those who believe in Christianity it is not a good thing.

All our safety concerns stem from the fact that radio-activity is being created. During the process of fission, you produce about 35 assorted elements or isotopes. Some in the form of gases like krypton and xenon which you cannot keep in the control rod, they escape into the coolant water from which they have to be extracted and stored or released into the atmosphere. But the bulk of fission products will remain trapped in the control rods. After a year’s use, you replace some 20 tons of it and keep the spent fuel temporarily in swimming pools that are about 12 feet deep. If we allow the nuclear plant to operate, let’s say it operates for 30 years, we will have so much radioactive waste to dispose of.

In the U.S. nuclear reactors are faced with the problem of accumulated wastes. When they designed these swimming pools s temporary sites, they expected in the future to have a permanent storage place, but this has not materialized. So they’re building more swimming pools instead.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) is very very strict on storage because the spent fuel elements are so radio-actively hot that they produce/generate enough heat to melt the fuel rods themselves. And there’s a possibility that you might keep those fuel rods in a configuration that may become critical, that might also produce fission.

Two cardinal rules in running a nuclear reactor: One, never never leave it without circulating coolant water, that is, water at 2000 lbs. per square inch at 635 degrees fahrenheit. I think 600,000 gallons per minute is what you need to cool the reactor and this must be circulating constantly. Two, never never be without power, whether from the Luzon grid or emergency diesel generators or from your own production.

Now our reactor is a Westinghouse reactor whose steam generator might have a defect common to Westinghouse reactors. Westinghouse sold one to Japan in 1970 which turned out to be a lemon. The Japanese never got any power out of it because of steam generator problems, that is, leaking tubes. A leakage of just one gallon per minute out of 600,000 gallons per minute of water is already considered dangerous. You’d be required to shut down that reactor.

What did our Westinghouse friends say on TV when they were asked about this? Oh, they said, we anticipated that problem. All you have  to do is plug any leaking tubes, we made provisions for extra tubes. They didn’t mention, of course, that the tubes are in the reactor building, you have to open the steam generator and locte the leaking tube before you can plug it. And what if there were a leakage and the tube did not know how to follow Westinghouse’s directions? What if a leaking tube ruptures? The rupture would cause a decrease in the pressure, steam will form, the release valve will open, so many gallons of water will spill out and contaminate the building. It would take 6 months to repair the steam generator and to complete decontamination.

All major accidents, so far, involved mistakes in design and failure of equipment, usually compounded by human error. What we need are experts with stringent standards to help with the evaluation of the plant’s construction and design. Which is why I question the Philippine government’s insistence to the USNRC in 1980 that any evaluation by the latter of our nuclear plant would constitute a violation of Philippine sovereignty. Why does the government not want to know what nuclear experts think about our plant?

I’m pretty sure that if that nuclear plant is evaluated by an independent team of experts, one not subject to the pressures a Filipino team would be subject to, a lot of safety defects will be found. Then surely the price will even go higher. In the U.S. experience with plants that are 95 to 100% completed, you’ll need at least half a billion dollars more to upgrade design and safety standards.

Now if we’re going to spend half a billion more dollars, let’s construct a dirty coal plant instead. The tubing is already there, the generator is already there, the building is already there. We can have a dirty coal plant for the same amount of money. Yes, there will be pollution of the environment to worry about but at least it won’t be radioactive, nor permanently dangerous.  We will not be leaving future generations of Filipinos with a ticking time bomb. God did not create radioactivit in such huge quantities. It is this generation, our generation, that is creating these radioactive particles and wastes. I blame the Church. The Church has not addressed the morality of technological advances such as this.

Question. Will the plant be able to withstand earthquakes? Or what if that nearby volcano erupts without warning?

GONZALEZ.  In August 1973 the NAPOCOR engaged EBASCO Overseas Corporation of New York to help select, then evaluate, the site for the nuclear plant. They submitted 13 volumes of reports after 2 years work. The Philippines spent about $615 million for their assessments. Their conclusions: (1) The plant will be able to withstand earthqueakes up to 7.9 on the Richter scale, that is, about 40% acceleration of gravity, which means that all buildings in Manila will have toppled down and the plant will still be standing. (2) That mountain there has not erupted in the last 50,000 years, is not likely to erupt in the future.  (3) Although we are situated on an earthquake belt, so is Japan and the Japanese have 24 nuclear plants, Taiwan has 4, South Korea has 8.

Question. Are any steps being made to look for a permanent storage place for radioactive wastes instead of just temporary ones?

DEL CALLAR.  There’s a committee looking for geologically stable places and the claim is that Mindoro and Palawan are suitable. But the Palawenos say no. In fact, the’re already complaining, first you gave us a leper colony, then a penal colony, then you gave us Pena, now you want to give us nuclear waste! No, it will not be in Palawan.

Now they’re saying that Tarlac and Zambales are also geologically stable places. I say it’s not that safe. You have the huge Pacific tectonic plate subducting against the Asian plate that produced the Himalayan mountains; you have the massive Euro-Asian plate and the Australian plate; all giant plates, with the Pacific plate, the side of most volcanic eruptions and giant earthquakes, forming a ‘circle of fire’. And in between these three huge plates is our very own, the Philippine plate, which we share with Japan. At the moment the Pacific plate is subducting under our plate in the Mindanao Deep (they subduct usually at deep deep ocean tenches).

So you have this small tectonic plate and you think you’ll find a geologically stable formation on that small tectonic plate? Impossible! Any big tectonic movement of any of these giant plates is liable to produce volcanic activity anywhere in the Philippines. . . . Volcanology is not an exact science. It cannot predict anything.

[“A Primer on Nuclear Power.”  Alternative Futures. Vol II. No 1. 1985.  27-32]